open sights vs red dot sight

I love reflex sights. But you should never rely too heavily on optics. When (not if) Mr. Murphy comes to pay a visit during combat, you should be able to switch to your iron sights with relative ease.

Shooting your guns more with iron sights than optics is highly recommended. Remember, optics are much easier to master than iron sights, especially when you're engaging targets beyond 300 meters.

In my humble opinion, optics are a crutch and the military's way of smoothing over not giving us enough range time.

When a rifleman only gets to fire his rifle once a month if he is lucky, someone has messed up the priorities. We spend more time doing BS details supporting one Division function or another than we do training, and we're at war! Screw the reunion, I'd rather survive the deployment.

If you need optics to fire your weapon accurately in CQB you're messed up. If you need iron sights to fire your weapon accurately in CQB you're messed up. Its all reflexes. If you've trained enough you should be able to orient your rifle without much more than a glance down the barrel. The only way you get proficient is to put several thousand rounds downrange.

Iron sights are easily sufficient for ranges between 50m and 300m, more if you're a good shot. I don't see any reason to have a scope unless you're shooting over 300m.

I was issued a reflex sight (along with similarly useless lasers and flashlights and handles that sprung out a bipod when you pressed a button) and they spent a year occupying prime real estate in my assault bag. I would have boxed them up and locked them in a wall locker, but you know how Green 2 reports go....

I'll take training over 10 lbs and $10,000 of gimmicky crap strapped to my rifle any day.

I might of misunderstood the question or maybe everyone else did, but I thought you were refering to a tube red dot sight i.e. aimpoint (reflex or whatever you would like to refer to it as) as opposed to an open design type of red dot i.e. trijicon reflex. I would have to say as I have only had experience with the open design that I prefer it (bias from lack of experience). But just taking into account the designs I would have to say that open is better because you don't become overly focused on the sight itself. Looking down a scope (even without zoom) can reduce situational awareness as you begin to focus too much on the sight picture.